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African press review 17 November 2018

Terrorists are buying their way into Kenya from Somalia by bribing border guards. Ethiopia is the worst place in the world to be stuck for a toilet. Investors seeking clarity on South African government policy on land expropriation will have to wait until after the 2019 elections.

Police officers at the Kenya-Somalia border allowed five Al-Shebab suicide bombers across the frontier in February this year after receiving bribes, according to a United Nations report covered by the East African.

The Somalia Report 2018, released this week by the Somalia and Eritrea Monitoring Group, paints a disturbing picture of the misplaced loyalties of some of the security officers Kenya has deployed to protect itself and reveals, for the first time, how the Somalia-based militants are routinely allowed to cross into Kenya to kill and maim.

An investigation into a foiled attack last February revealed that Al-Shebab operatives crossed the Kenya-Somalia border five times in three months, detected but unobstructed, by paying 20-euro bribes to security forces.

Kenya's Inspector-General of Police Joseph Boinnet declined to comment on the bribery allegations, saying he was yet to read the report. Internal Security minister Fred Matiang'i was not available for comment.

Don't get caught short in Ethiopia

Ethiopia is the worst place in the world to be stuck for a toilet.

That, I kid you not, is the top story in today's regional paper the East African.

The report says that Ethiopians are less likely than anyone else on earth to have access to a decent loo.

The international charity WaterAid found that Ethiopia leads the world in toilet scarcity with 93 percent of people in Africa's second-most populous country not having access to a safe lavatory.

The same report, released ahead of the UN's annual World Toilet Day on 19 November, found that 2.3 billion people worldwide have no loo at home.

Expropriation will have to wait, ANC

Investors seeking clarity on South African government policy on land expropriation will have to wait until after the 2019 elections, reports Johannesburg-based financial paper BusinessDay.

While parliament’s joint constitutional review committee formally resolved on Thursday to recommend that the property section of the constitution be changed to expedite expropriation of land without compensation, the ruling African National Congress yesterday confirmed that this is unlikely to happen before next year's polls.

Kenyan reserve grain going down the drain

Strategic grain stores in Kenya are in a deplorable state, according to the main story in this morning's Nairobi-based Standard.

Despite holding thousands of bags of maize, beans and other cereal produce, some National Cereals and Produce Board stores have been neglected says the report.

Leaking roofs are among the problems leading to huge losses of food intended to see Kenya's needy through future shortages.

South Sudan opposition calls for three-region federal structure

The South Sudanese opposition People’s Democratic Movement (PDM) has called for a review of the recently-signed revitalised peace agreement.

According to the Sudan Tribune, the opposition group says the latest peace agreement is sharing power between the country's elite at the expense of the 64 tribes who make up the South Sudanese population.

The People’s Democratic Movement wants to see more popular participation in the way South Sudan is governed, with a 33 percent power-sharing allocation to each of the three regions of Upper Nile, Equatoria and Bahr al-Ghazal.

The PDM rejects President Salva Kiir's division of the country into 32 states.

Chase the cheats out of Nigeria's ruling party

The Christian Association of Nigeria yesterday told President Muhammadu Buhari that the ruling All Progressives Congress was becoming a safe haven for corrupt politicians, says Nigerian paper Punch.

The association called on the president to make the war against corruption total and non-discriminatory.

The leadership of the Christian body said Buhari must disperse the negative impression that the anti-corruption effort was primarily directed at non-All Progressives Congress members.